The Science Delusion

WESTERN science is growing every year more intolerant, as H. P. Blavatsky once declared in the article Occult or Exact Science

Yet “every new discovery made by modern science vindicates the truths of the archaic philosophy,” she admits — but only “if approached in the right direction.”

A century later, not much has changed. Last year around this time a public controversy arose over scientific research into the fundamentals of consciousness.

“It involves IONS scientists, as well as some of our colleagues,” an article on the IONS website titled Think Outside the Box revealed noting how the controversy “may reflect shifting attitudes about frontier research.”

“TED, the popular conference organizer with the tag line ‘ideas worth spreading,’ recently removed videos of two TEDx talks from their official YouTube channel and then cancelled a TEDx event.

The censored talks and cancelled event had a common theme — exploring the possibility that consciousness extends beyond the brain.”

If “will has no special organ,” H. P. Blavatsky once argued, “how will the materialists connect it with ‘molecular’ motion at all?” Knowing they could not, she fueled the dispute quoting the prominent psychologist George T. Ladd: — ”The phenomena of human consciousness must be regarded as activities of some other form of Real Being than the moving molecules of the brain.'”

Yet TED’s justification for their actions “was that the contributors were promoting ‘pseudo-science.’ The videos were talks presented by Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock, and the event presenters included Russell Targ, Larry Dossey, and IONS’ Marilyn Schlitz.”

“TED’s actions, based on recommendations from its anonymous ‘Science Board,’ kicked off a heated Internet discussion and shed light on how some segments of the scientific mainstream tend to stifle conversation on the nature of consciousness, including the kind of cutting-edge research that IONS conducts.

“… the occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization,”

“However, the enormous attention this controversy has received, and the discussion it generated,” the IONS article concludes, “may signal a shift towards more openness to including the possibility of non-local consciousness into scientific dialogues.”

The Science Delusion

The Censored Talk

“Based on the thousands of comments generated by TED’s action, I think it is clear that the majority of TED fans were very upset with TED,” said IONS Chief Scientist Dean Radin, “and contrary to TED’s complaint that these people were legions of woo-woo fans, many of the commenters explicitly said that they were quite skeptical of this line of research.”

RUPERT SHELDRAKE, Ph.D. (born 28 June 1942) is a biologist and author of more than 80 scientific papers and ten books. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he was a Scholar of Clare College, took a double first class honours degree and was awarded the University Botany Prize. He then studied philosophy and history of science at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow, before returning to Cambridge, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He was a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, where he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on the development of plants and the ageing of cells in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University.

Ten Dogmas of Occultism

A short excerpt from H.P.Blavatsky’s article Occult or Exact Science summarizes the main aim of her ground breaking book Isis Unveiled: “About ten years ago, when Isis Unveiled was being written, the most important point the work aimed at was the demonstration of … the reality of the Occult in nature.”

“To comprehend the principles of natural law…the reader must keep in mind the fundamental propositions of the Oriental philosophy. Let us recapitulate very briefly [Isis Unveiled 2:587]:

“1st. There is no miracle. Everything that happens is the result of law — eternal, immutable, ever active. Apparent miracle is but the operation of forces antagonistic to what Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F. R. S. — a man of great learning but little knowledge — calls “the well-ascertained laws of nature.” Like many of his class, Dr. Carpenter ignores the fact that there may be laws once “known,” now unknown to science.

“2d. Nature is triune: there is a visible, objective nature; an invisible, indwelling, energizing nature, the exact model of the other, and its vital principle; and, above these two, spirit, source of all forces, alone eternal, and indestructible. The lower two constantly change; the higher third does not.

“3d. Man is also triune: he has his objective, physical body; his vitalizing astral body (or soul), the real man; and these two are brooded over and illuminated by the third — the sovereign, the immortal spirit. When the real man succeeds in merging himself with the latter, he becomes an immortal entity.

“4th. Magic, as a science, is the knowledge of these principles, and of the way by which the omniscience and omnipotence of the spirit and its control over nature’s forces may be acquired by the individual while still in the body. Magic, as an art, is the application of this knowledge in practice.

“6th. Mediumship is the opposite of adeptship; the medium is the passive instrument of foreign influences, the adept actively controls himself and all inferior potencies.

“7th. All things that ever were, that are, or that will be, having their record upon the astral light, or tablet of the unseen universe, the initiated adept, by using the vision of his own spirit, can know all that has been known or can be known.

“8th. Races of men differ in spiritual gifts as in color, stature, or any other external quality; among some peoples seership naturally prevails, among others mediumship. Some are addicted to sorcery, and transmit its secret rules of practice from generation to generation, with a range of psychical phenomena, more or less wide, as the result.

“9th. One phase of magical skill is the voluntary and conscious withdrawal of the inner man (astral form) from the outer man (physical body). In the cases of some mediums withdrawal occurs, but it is unconscious and involuntary.

“With the latter the body is more or less cataleptic at such times; but with the adept the absence of the astral form would not be noticed, for the physical senses are alert, and the individual appears only as though in a fit of abstraction — ‘a brown study,’ as some call it.

“To the movements of the wandering astral form neither time nor space offer obstacles. The thaumaturgist, thoroughly skilled in occult science, can cause himself (that is, his physical body) to seem to disappear, or to apparently take on any shape that he may choose. He may make his astral form visible, or he may give it protean appearances.

“In both cases these results will be achieved by a mesmeric hallucination of the senses of all witnesses, simultaneously brought on. This hallucination is so perfect that the subject of it would stake his life that he saw a reality, when it is but a picture in his own mind, impressed upon his consciousness by the irresistible will of the mesmerizer.

“But, while the astral form can go anywhere, penetrate any obstacle, and be seen at any distance from the physical body, the physical is dependent upon ordinary methods of transportation. It may be levitated under prescribed magnetic conditions, but not pass from one locality to another except in the usual way.

“Hence we discredit all stories of the aerial flight of mediums in body, for such would be miracle, and miracle we repudiate. Inert matter may be, in certain cases and under certain conditions, disintegrated, passed through walls, and recombined, but living animal organisms cannot. (…)

“10th. The corner-stone of MAGIC is an intimate practical knowledge of magnetism and electricity, their qualities, correlations, and potencies. Especially necessary is a familiarity with their effects in and upon the animal kingdom and man. There are occult properties in many other minerals, equally strange with that in the lodestone, which all practitioners of magic must know, and of which so-called exact science is wholly ignorant.

Plants also have like mystical properties in a most wonderful degree, and the secrets of the herbs of dreams and enchantments are only lost to European science, and useless to say, too, are unknown to it, except in a few marked instances, such as opium and hashish. Yet, the psychical effects of even these few upon the human system are regarded as evidences of a temporary mental disorder. The women of Thessaly and Epirus, the female hierophants of the rites of Sabazius, did not carry their secrets away with the downfall of their sanctuaries. They are still preserved, and those who are aware of the nature of Soma, know the properties of other plants as well.

Summing Up

“To sum up all in a few words, MAGIC is spiritual WISDOM; nature, the material ally, pupil and servant of the magician. One common vital principle pervades all things, and this is controllable by the perfected human will. The adept can stimulate the movements of the natural forces in plants and animals in a preternatural degree. Such experiments are not obstructions of nature, but quickenings; the conditions of intenser vital action are given.

“The adept can control the sensations and alter the conditions of the physical and astral bodies of other persons not adepts; he can also govern and employ, as he chooses, the spirits of the elements. He cannot control the immortal spirit of any human being, living or dead, for all such spirits are alike sparks of the Divine Essence, and not subject to any foreign domination.”

Stats

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 3,856 other followers

Share Theosophy Watch

Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS)

Exploring the mysteries of consciousness, the Institute of Noetic Sciences researches mind-matter interactions, psychic experience, premonitions and more. You can help the research, and get a free copy of Entangled Minds.